


10x18 Coda

by ellenmellenn



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bisexual Dean Winchester, M/M, Multi, Past Benny Lafitte/Dean Winchester
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-23
Updated: 2015-04-23
Packaged: 2018-03-25 08:15:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3803236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellenmellenn/pseuds/ellenmellenn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Squeezing this in here right before the next episode airs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	10x18 Coda

The next morning is comfortably quiet and unhurried, like the night before changed color schemes but never really ended. The kitchen smells amazing, filled with the lingering aroma of bacon and omelets. Everyone, even Cas at Charlie’s insistence, had changed for the night, and now the four of them sit soaking up the easy morning in pj’s and sweats.

Dean may have cooked twice the food they needed to prolong the best morning he’s had in years. And also to prolong the sight of Cas in his old pajama pants and Stones t-shirt. He’s not even ashamed to say Cas looks fucking adorable in them.

None of them are very good at being still, though, not when there’s work to do. Dean can feel the energy in the room sharpening as everyone finishes their food and he knows this little slice of domesticity is over.

“So,” he begins reluctantly, “book’s burnt, Cas’s back in working order, and everyone’s had coffee. What’s next.”

Sam pulls a slip of paper out of his pocket. He piles his empty plate on top of Cas’s and smooths Charlie’s drawing of the family crest on the table.

“I was thinking if we can’t get the information the book would’ve given us, maybe we can get some clues of where else to look from the family that took care of it.”

“You want to let those souped-up assholes find us?” Dean asks, raising his eyebrow. “Couldn’t have thought of that when a truck full of them followed me home?”

Sam pulls a classic bitchface which is completely undermined by his bedhead.

“I don’t mean they find us, Dean, I mean we find them. Track them back to their base, see if where they set up brings us any closer to what they know.”

“A family old enough to guard the Book of the Damned would certainly have a wealth of insight regarding the occult and how to contain and handle certain magic,” Castiel adds. “They’ve survived as its handlers for what seems to be many generations.”

Charlie hums in agreement. “They were tracking the book. Maybe they have stuff that can detect other powerful objects or curses.”

“Exactly,” Sam says, tapping on the sketch. “This family’s probably our best bet on learning about something else powerful enough to get rid of the Mark.” He looks at Dean for approval. “What do you think?”

“I think that pow-wow didn’t take long at all,” Dean says, pushing away from the table. “Guess we’re going to Louisiana.”

“An accent doesn’t mean the entire family’s based in the south,” Charlie says with a shitty southern accent of her own. “They tracked me all the way through Alaska and Europe.”

“Yeah but that tattoo is the Lafitte’s,” Dean says while pouring himself some more coffee. “So we should probably head back to Carencro.”

There’s no response and when Dean turns to sit back down Charlie is watching Cas and Sam, who look like Dean just personally insulted dogs and guinea pigs.

“What?”

“The Lafitte’s,” Sam echoes, and Dean realizes what he’s just said. _Ah, fuck_. “As in your vampire best-buddy? Those Lafitte’s?”

“Uh,” Dean stammers. He could go on the defensive here, spout some shit about ‘Yeah his best buddy Sam left to rot in Purgatory’ but it’s been _such a good morning_. Dean really doesn’t wanna do this. “No?”

“And you didn’t share this information sooner because _why?_ ” Sam half-shouts.

“Honestly, Sam, I forgot about it till now.” Dean has now earned a bitchface completely unique to this situation. He throws his hands up in surrender. “I’m serious man! I didn’t recognize it as a drawing. It looked familiar, but lots of those family crest things look the same. It didn’t click until I saw it tatted on that Jacob prick’s arm.”

Cas and Sam are already pointedly unhappy with where this is going, but Charlie just looks confused.

“Wait, Dean has a vampire friend?” she asks.

“Had a vampire friend,” Dean corrects, turning his full attention to Charlie and ignoring the bad vibes radiating from the other side of the table. “We broke out of Purgatory together, though he’s back in now. I kind of killed him, I guess, but it wasn’t supposed to be a permanent deal.”

Charlie has obviously been hanging out with them for too long because she accepts this in stride.

“So if you could talk to him, we could figure out more about this book and how his family’s connected to it?”

“Yeah, probably. But he’s a little hard to reach at the moment, kiddo. Being in Purgatory and all.”

“Maybe we could find a way to communicate with him, make a call or something? Or open a door long enough to have a conversation.”

“We’ve done it before,” Dean gives, nodding his head as he thinks. “Purgatory doesn’t like human souls in it so getting back out if we can get in isn’t –”

“Dean, would you listen to yourself for a minute?!” Sam interjects. Dean and Charlie pause the planning. “What are you even saying? You want to open a door to Purgatory, bad idea in the first place, so you can try to find one vampire who may not even be alive there. And if he is alive, and you somehow find him, you have no idea if he would even be able to help us.”

“All the while bearing the Mark of Cain,” Cas adds, and Dean imagines this is what arguing with your parents to stay out past curfew must be like. “You’ve seen how anything out of the ordinary in Purgatory attracts every monster in the realm, and you want to go in with double targets painted on your back.”

“Okay, first of all this isn’t some vampire, it’s Benny. I step foot in the place he’ll know about it and he’ll find me.” Cas and Sam look expectedly less than happy about that, but they can’t argue it. Dean has no doubts Benny could find him even if Dean managed to stay completely under the radar.

“Second, Benny has the damn tattoo, that’s how I recognized it. When do we ever get lucky enough to have a real connection to a case, who isn’t gonna screw us over? And you guys are gonna skip it by just because you don’t like him.”

Cas and Sam look a little guilty at that. They have a moment while Dean and Charlie wait where they try hard to come up with some viable reason that this is a bad idea. Eventually Cas sighs and Sam face-palms, running his hands through his hair, and Dean knows he’s won.

“Fine. Benny’s a five-star witness,” Sam whines. Good to see that little-brother spirit buried in him. “Let’s go to Purgatory.”

“Great,” Dean says, and curses himself again because _wow_ that was a lot more chipper than he’d been going for. “I mean, uh, great. Good. We’ve got a plan.”

Sam and Cas look vaguely annoyed but Sam smiles at him and shakes his head and gets up to take their dishes to the sink. Dean relaxes a bit into his chair, _fight avoided!_

And hey, look at that, the new plan involves finding a way to Benny! Dean doesn’t let himself get too excited, because something will almost definitely go wrong. This kind of luck is way too good. But there’s a chance Dean will get to see Benny and learn a way to get this dumb curse off his arm. And if he can find a way to ditch them in Purgatory long enough to see Benny first, then –

Charlie nudges Dean’s foot under the table and side-eyes him playfully.

“Why Dean Winchester, you seem pretty set on getting to this Benny guy,” she says, wiggling an eyebrow. “Is there anything I need to know? Like why you’re so familiar with his tattoos?”

Charlie sips her coffee and Dean laughs. And laughs. And turns a little red.

_Say something_ his brain flashes. But for the life of him he can’t think of anything so he keeps laughing and grabs his own coffee and drains the whole cup. Charlie’s side-eye is slowly turning into a full eye and Dean knows with another friend he could’ve played this off. But Charlie is Charlie and she’s seen enough.

“Do you –?”

“Ehm.”

“But I thought”

“Eh.”

“WAIT!”

“I mean–”

“So you–”

“Dude!”

Her eyes flash between him and Cas and her smile gets even bigger. Dean is going to die.

“Does that mean–”

“Don’t!”

“Oh my god you are!”

“Charlie!”

Sam and Cas have turned their full attention to this weird half-a-conversation. _Fuck everything_.

“Wait, so for realsies, you and Benny?” Charlie asks, and Dean watches Sam’s jaw actually drop. He is not looking at Cas, definitely not looking at Cas, but he knows Cas’s lips are pressed hard enough that the color’s drained from them.

The tension in the air is twisting, like he’s winding a guitar string too tight. But it still smells like omelets and Sammy doesn’t look that intimidating with his hair all messy and his jaw stuck open.

_Fuck it._

“Yeah, me and Benny.”

Charlie is grinning like it’s fucking Christmas. They might have broken Sam, he hasn’t moved at all except to blink. Dean wants to take a picture but also wants to see how long he can keep Sam speechless.

He risks a glance at Cas who’s obviously kind of pissed, but of the three of them, Cas is the only one who doesn’t look surprised.

Huh.

“You gonna say anything more on that subject, Dean-o?” Charlie prompts, and Dean scratches a hand through his hair. He’s never had anyone ask him details about his love-life before. Especially when that love-life involves a dude.

“There’s not much to tell. What do you wanna know?”

“Were you together?” she asks. “Like, really together?”

Dean blushes but he knows his answer. “Yeah, we were together. We didn’t rent romcoms and share breadsticks at dinner or anything. But we were together.”

“In Purgatory?”

“Not entirely. Purgatory, it’s…,” he scratches the stubble that’s growing across his jaw, “it’s not a place you can be with somebody. You’re too busy trying to just be alive. But somewhere along the way it changed from being together just for a purpose to being together because we wanted to be. We found more excuses for down time, or for leaning on each other. Turned in earlier or stayed in one place a little longer than we would’ve. But we weren’t ‘together’ the way you’re thinking until we got out.”

“So what’s he look like? Give me something to picture here.”

“I don’t want you picturing anything,” Dean quips and she smacks his arm. He genuinely laughs this time. Sam still looks like a guppy but Charlie makes this really easy. “He’s a little shorter than me, but not much. Blue eyes; like really blue you know, bright. And he’s got this stupid hat he wears, and a peacoat. Like a fucking sea captain. But I guess he kind of is. He used to be a pirate.”

“Dark hair?” she asks and Dean kicks her under the table.

“Nope, more like mine. Kinda red sometimes. He’s got a beard.” Charlie nods and Dean knows somehow that she got the message not to go there.

“Cute red-head, good choice,” she says, winking. Dean rolls his eyes. “How’d you deal with the vampire thing?”

“Well he didn’t drink from people, only IV bags. Still gross to watch, but I couldn’t really complain.”

“And he was seriously a pirate? A vampirate?”

“That’s what I said! None of them ever thought of it!”

“But it’s like the third thing you say!”

“Right?!”

Charlie grins but quickly schools her face into a more serious expression. She leans over the table and looks up through her eyelashes. “Top or bottom?”

Charlie is a little shit and Dean’s face is on fire. That question is also, finally, the breaking point for Sam and Cas.

“NO! No, no, no, no, no, no. I do not wanna know that,” Sam says. Cas stomps over to get the last of the coffee from the pot. It takes him a while to come back and Dean really hopes they didn’t push this conversation too far.

Now that Sam’s found his voice, though, he’s got something to say.

“Dude, why didn’t you tell me?”

Dean shrugs and looks at the table. “You didn’t ask.”

“I didn’t–? I didn’t ask? Well, gee, Dean, excuse me for not asking if you were boyfriends with the vampire you jumped out of Purgatory with.”

Sam sighs and runs his hands through his hair, resting his palms over his eyes.

“I should’ve known,” he says after a second. “The second I saw you guys in that boat I thought _maybe_ but then he was a vampire so I didn’t think. But I should’ve known, he’s exactly your type.”

“ _My type?_ ” Dean repeats. “Since when do you know about ‘my type’?”

Sam pulls a bitchface trifecta and informs him that “Dean, we’ve lived together, in the same room, nearly all of our lives. Do you really think this is the first time I’ve seen you be an idiot over a guy?”

Well damn.

“Guess I coulda mentioned this a little sooner then.”

“Don’t worry about it, Dean. Trust me, I will never expect you to initiate a conversation about your feelings.”

“So you’re not too mad I didn’t introduce my ex-vampire-boyfriend and let you tell him to have me home by 10?”

Sam snorts, “No, I’m not mad. Though for the record, you are never allowed to give me shit about dating monsters again, past, present or future.”

“Deal. We’re good then?”

“We’re good. Feel free to tell me the next time you wanna bang a supernatural being.”

Sam is thankfully oblivious to the other three people at the table pointedly not looking at each other. He gets up and walks to the kitchen door.

“So showers now, then hitting the books for a door to Purgatory where everything will want to kill us so that we can talk to Dean’s vampire ex. Sound good?”

There’s a general rumble of agreement and chairs being pushed back as Dean, Charlie and Cas move to follow him out of the kitchen. Dean would love a shower and desperately needs a moment alone to process everything that just came out, but he needs to do some damage control first.

“Hey, Cas, would you mind helping me take the trash out?” he says, and Charlie, bless her, moves twice as fast to get out the door.

Castiel obviously debates whether he wants to stay in a room one-on-one with Dean right now and yep, Dean made the right call. As much as he hates talking, this is gonna have to happen. Thankfully Cas doesn’t make him ask twice. He doesn’t agree to help, there is no ‘Yes, Dean,’ but Cas shrugs and pulls the new trashbags out of a cabinet. Dean just watches him for a moment; it’s good to see Cas shrug even hopped back up on his grace. And also good to see Cas being a grumpy, shrugging shit in Dean’s old t-shirt.

Dean ties off the trashbags they used over the past day. With his hands distracted, it’s easier to talk.

“So, me and Benny,” he begins, and sees Cas’s shoulders stiffen across the kitchen. “That’s over.”

Cas still isn’t talking to him but he angles his body so he can see Dean from the side.

“We, uh. We broke it off, before I ever knew I’d have to k—. I mean. Before I had to ask him to go back to Purgatory.”

“Sam must not have been happy with your relationship, sexual or platonic,” Cas finally says.

“No, he wasn’t. But that wasn’t why we called it off.”

Cas’s voice is monotone and he still isn’t really looking at Dean when he asks, “Why did you?”

Dean isn’t really looking at Cas either when he says, “Because it was fun and Benny’s great but it just... wasn’t what I wanted.”

It’s quiet between them. Dean can’t get a read on it and patience is really not one of his strong suits. He gives and looks to Cas.

Cas is already staring and Dean can feel his heart picking up as they hold the moment across the kitchen.

“Ah,” is the only thing Cas says.

He walks over and picks up one of the trash bags and a crumpled pizza box. Dean picks up his own and leads the way out of the bunker. They go out and come back in silence that’s different from before, but not exactly comfortable. Dean feels like it’s going to rain. They walk down the hall to Sam and Dean’s rooms and the rooms they’ve designated for Charlie and Cas. Those rooms may have been put aside much longer than either of their guests know. Just in case.

Cas’s door is first. He turns away from Dean, reaching for the doorknob. Before he goes inside, Dean distinctly hears Cas say, firmly,

“Good.”


End file.
